Brand frontispiece - the mark and wordmark in their primary lockup, on Forward Partners navy.
An identity for a London VC partnering with start-up founders. Three brand values, held in one mark.
Brand frontispiece - the mark and wordmark in their primary lockup, on Forward Partners navy.
Forward Partners are a London investment firm building close, hands-on partnerships with early-stage founders. They don't just write the cheque - they work alongside the founders they back, sharing teams and knowledge. The brief was to evolve the firm's identity so it read as genuinely hands-on, not corporate and distant.
The work centred on a refined wordmark and a three-tone mark - three brand values held together as a single device. Built whilst working in-house with the firm and several of its portfolio companies.
Original thinking, and the reason the firm spots potential before others do.
The steadiness early-stage partnerships need. Patient and credible.
The standard every decision is measured against.
The mark borrows from chemistry - elements meeting to form a third - and the colour theory that carries the meaning. Each circle is its own value. Where they overlap, they make something none could carry alone.
Designed to sit above or beside the wordmark, the mark works across dark and light surfaces, with the colours tuned for each. The dark register is primary; the light register is more formal - letterheads, slides, proposals, the finer details of partnership.
Three values combine to create something none could carry alone.
Elements meet, react, and produce a third condition.
The blending mode that allows the overlap to appear.
The wordmark is set in Gotham - Extra Light for FORWARD, Book for PARTNERS - chosen for its geometric calm and its place within serious modern identity systems. FORWARD sits at full width, generously tracked. PARTNERS sits beneath, doing the supporting work, the same role the firm plays for its founders.
Portrait and landscape lockups keep the same proportional relationship between mark and wordmark, so the brand reads consistently across tablet splashes, slides, documents, and footer signatures.
Logo - Mono on-dark
Logo - Colour - On-light
"Three brand values, held in a single mark."Brand thinking
The route to the final identity ran through dozens of explorations - early concepts around catalyst, chemical, and multiply, single-letter monograms, abstracted F-shapes, and several typographic-only lockups. The wall of workings was its own argument: a brand needs to look better than the version next to it, and the only way to know is to draw them all.
The selected route is the one that did the most with the least. Three colours. One geometric sans. A tight, restrained system that works without shouting.
